From roughly 1900 to 1964, this was the only Atlantic City beachfront section where Black visitors were permitted — a civil rights landmark designated in 1997
Missouri Ave & Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ 08401
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The beach and boardwalk are publicly accessible at no charge. The 2015 commemorative marker is visible from the boardwalk.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat boardwalk access; beach sand below
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1997 · Atlantic City historical landmark (designated 1997) · Only permitted beachfront section for Black visitors from ~1900 to 1964 · Cultural anchor for Black resort and jazz culture in the Jim Crow era · 2015 commemorative marker by Chicken Bone Beach Historical Foundation
Atlantic City marketed itself as the 'World's Playground' through the early twentieth century, but Black visitors arrived to find the resort's informal racial geography tightly enforced. By around 1900, social custom restricted Black beachgoers to the section of beach at Missouri Avenue — a boundary maintained not by posted ordinance but by the threat of violence and expulsion that backed Jim Crow custom across the urban North.
Boardwalk restaurants, hotels, and concessions refused service to Black guests. Families who came to the beach packed their own food — chicken, typically, carried from home — because they had no other option. White vacationers and local press applied a derogatory name to the practice: Chicken Bone Beach. The name was eventually reclaimed by the community as a marker of resilience and self-sufficiency.
Despite the restrictions, or perhaps because of them, the Missouri Avenue area developed into a concentrated locus of Black resort culture. The Kentucky Avenue corridor a few blocks inland hosted Club Harlem, which drew performers including Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Jordan, Billie Holiday, and other major figures. The beach itself was the public gathering point — crowded on summer weekends with swimmers and families who had, by necessity, built a social world within the confined geography.
Desegregation following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened the full beachfront, and the informal segregation at Missouri Avenue ended. The Atlantic City Council designated the site a historical landmark in 1997. The Chicken Bone Beach Historical Foundation installed a commemorative marker in 2015 documenting the beach's civil rights significance and its jazz and cultural heritage.
Sources
The dark history of Chicken Bone Beach is documented and immediate rather than spectral. There are no recorded ghost stories or paranormal claims attached to the Missouri Avenue beachfront. The site's presence in dark tourism contexts derives from its role as a memorial to decades of racial exclusion — the systematic denial of full access to a public resort that marketed itself as open to all.
The Chicken Bone Beach Historical Foundation, which maintains the site's legacy and operates educational programming, frames the history in terms of dignity and community resistance rather than victimhood. The foundation's documentation emphasizes the cultural richness that developed within the confined geography: the jazz performances at Club Harlem, the social bonds formed at the beach itself, and the self-sufficiency that turned a derogatory name into a source of collective identity.
For visitors approaching the site as dark tourism, the historical marker at Missouri Avenue and the Boardwalk serves as the primary interpretive anchor. The Civil Rights Memorial aspect positions it alongside similarly designated landmarks documenting northern racial discrimination.
The 2015 commemorative marker at Missouri Avenue and the Boardwalk identifies the site of what was once Atlantic City's sole beach section open to Black visitors. The Chicken Bone Beach Historical Foundation documents the site's role as a social anchor for Black resort culture from roughly 1900 through 1964, including its connection to jazz performers who played at the nearby Club Harlem on Kentucky Avenue.
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